Kentucky beat Florida, 72-67, for the Cats' sixth straight SEC Win

DrewFranklinKSR

In Rupp Arena’s last Saturday night game on the schedule, Kentucky Basketball defended its home court against the Florida Gators, 72-67, in the first of two meetings between the SEC East rivals this season. Kentucky entered the game having just won at Ole Miss earlier in the week but lost its last game in Rupp a week ago against Kansas in the Big 12/SEC Challenge.

Against Florida, Big Blue Nation didn’t quite match the energy of last week’s Kansas game, but the home crowd played a huge role in pushing the Wildcats to a sixth straight win in league competition. A game in which Kentucky led from the very beginning, the victory breaks a tie with Florida at fifth place in the SEC standings, a separation that could mean a lot come conference tournament time when the four best records earn double-byes.

It was also a nice ending to Mike Pratt Day in Rupp Arena. The UK Hall of Famer’s jersey was finally retired next to Pat Riley’s and Dan Issel’s in the rafters at halftime.

As for the Gators, Saturday’s loss in Lexington spoiled some of the momentum gained by ruining Tennessee’s No. 2 ranking earlier in the week with a double-digit win over the Vols in Gainesville. Florida is now 6-4 in league play and losing its grasp on a shot at a tournament bid. Joe Lunardi had Florida as one of its First Four Out prior to tip-off of Saturday’s game in Lexington.

So how’d we get here?

As previously noted, Kentucky grabbed the first lead of the game and didn’t look back, jumping ahead 2-0 on a dunk by Oscar Tshiebwe to start things on the right track. Kentucky’s first-half lead climbed to as many as 13 points, then back to four on a 6-0 Florida run late in the period, only for Kentucky to go into intermission on a 7-0 run to push the lead back to 11 points at 33-22.

In the second half, Kentucky’s offense struggled early due to forced action around Tshiebwe, who fouled out late in the game and wasn’t his best self against Colin Castleton on either end. Tshiebwe missed two early second-half shots and the Wildcats turned it over three times before the first media timeout. From there, Florida kept the game somewhat within reach but never posed a serious threat to the final result. Cason Wallace, CJ Fredrick, and Jacob Toppin were good enough to keep Kentucky’s lead secure, but not without a scare in the final minute when Florida surged to within three and got the ball when Kentucky missed the front end of a one-and-one with under a minute to go. The Gators botched the game-tying opportunity.

In the end, the final scoreboard reads 72-67, a win for the good guys.